Trul’s Woodworking Guide
Preface: I’ve read through this, and this is a rather honest, straightforward guide. The subtle humour is tempting me to try Woodworking to see if I could get the gist of Truls’ experience, but when I look at Cooking, I think not.
Okay, since most of you might level Wood to 60 as a sub, this should be helpful. for others, I’ll post about 60+, and my plans to get to 100, sometime in the next two years >< I’m going to assume you all know the basics of crafting, since this is the members only section and most of you have crafted to some extent. If not, just put up questions in here.
First off, the guild in is North San d’Oria. Sign up with the guy outside in the carpenter’s apron, and you’re good to go. This is the same guy you go to for guild tests.
Every 8 levels, you need to take the guild test, I’ve found that crafting the items always saved me money, plus I always liked making them in front of the guy then trading them in:
Test Items
Level 8 – Workbench (4x Lauan Lumber)
Level 18 – Maple Table (4x Maple Lumber)
Level 28 – Harp (Coeurl Whisker, 2x Chestnut Lumber)
Level 38 – Traversiere (Wind Crystal, Oak Lumber, Parchment)
Level 48 – Rose Wand (Wind Crystal, Rosewood Lumber, Black Chocobo Feather)
Level 58 – Kaman (Wind Crystal, Silk Thread, Wool Cloth, Bamboo Stick, Elm Lumber)
Level 68 – Ebony Wand (Wind Crystal, Ebony Lumber, Giant Bird Feather)
Level 78 – Commode (5x Rosewood Lumber)
Unless you are synthing lumber for actual skillups, do not synth your own until you do a guild contract for the lumberjack ability. However if you do need logs for synths, always buy from the guild and not the AH. You’ll end up losing time and money since it’ll be a waste. Also, logging is a massive waste of time, just buy from the guild each time. I always get advanced synth support from the woman downstairs inthe guild unless I’m 1-2 levels below the cap. It does not reduce your chance of HQ or skillups; in fact, it increases them and has been proven.
I’ve found that skillups are best on lightsday, and the day strongest to your crystal. A full moon also increases the chances. Generally, you want to be within 5 levels of the item you’re synthing for skillups, but there are certain things we can make exceptions for. In lower levels, don’t worry about day/moon phase, since the skillups are easy and the synths are cheap. Once you hit 50+ and 60+, you’ll never see a .2 or .3 skill increase again, and the skillups slow down dramatically, making it very painful. If you’re worried for certain huge synth gaps where you’ll fail a lot, get Moghancement for the crystal type you’re using to reduce failures. But I didn’t do that — too lazy. Farming your own crystals can help but isn’t absolutely necessary. I would say my total investment getting to 60 hovered around the 300k-350k range, and I sold about half to NPC and other fast-selling stuff on AH when I could profit from it. I can’t tell you which to NPC and which to AH for everything; that’s up to you to decide what losses you will take and how patient you are to wait for things to sell.
Okay, on to the guide:
These first 20-30 levels are the same on every guide.
0-10
0-2: Arrowwood Lumber (Wind Crystal, Arrowwood Log)
2-5: Maple Lumber (Wind Crystal, Maple Log)
5-8: Ash Lumber (Wind Crystal, Ash Log)
8-10: Willow Lumber (Wind Crystal, Willow Log)
Note: Save everything but the Maple Lumber for later synths. You can AH it, it sells pretty fast, or just NPC it. Take your guild test at level 8, easy stuff.
10-20
10-12: Willow Lumber (Wind Crystal, Willow Log).
Keep doing these and same them for next synth…
12-14: Willow Wand (Wind Crystal, Willow Lumber, Insect Wing)
– That should kill off all your Willow Lumber. If not, AH/NPC the rest.
14-20: Maple Sugar (Lightning Crystal, Maple Log)
– if someone in the LS is doing cooking, send these to them, since they’re used for pies. You’re going to be making a huge amount, but don’t worry about failures since it’s a cheap synth. Take the guild test again, and onwards!
20-30
20-22: Yew Lumber (Wind Crystal, Yew Log)
– Save the lumber for…
22-23: Yew Wand (Wind Crystal, Yew Lumber, Yagudo Feather)
– AH/NPC remaining lumber afterwards. Easy bridge synth.
23-30: Silver Arrows (Ash Lumber, Yagudo Fletching, Silver Arrowhead)
These sell fast and reliably, and they’re also quiverable. You’ll have failures in the beginning, but don’t worry you will end up profiting in the end. They do quiver, so if the NPC is in Sandy then quiver em for space. Sell on AH. Take the guild test, and it’s time to start profiting soon!
30-40
Now, I highly advise, that BEFORE you do anything else, to do a guild contract. Lumberjack ability is only 10,000 guild points, so easily obtainable. I won’t go through guild points, just talk to the guy in the guild and it’s pretty straightforward. Lumberjack allows you to synth at minimum 3 logs at once into 3 lumber with one crystal, thus saving time and money. You can also HQ1 for 6 lumber, and HQ2 for 9 lumber. Once you get this ability, start synthing your own lumber from now on.
30-31: Book Holder (Holly Lumber, Lauan Lumber)
– knock off one level with this bridge, put some in AH and sell rest to NPC.
31-38: Beetle Arrows (Arrowwood Lumber, Beetle Arrowhead, Chocobo Fletching)
– These don’t really sell that fast, so either bite the bullet and NPC them/sell to LS members like I did, or send to a mule and AH them. They do quiver.
38-40: Fang Arrows (Arrowwood Lumber, Fang Arrowhead, Yagudo Fletching)
– These suck. I didn’t even AH, they don’t sell fast. NPC’d for a loss, but you can do whatever. I’m not that patient
Guild test again, and it’s time for profit!
40-50
40-42: Fang Arrows
– Just like above. May I reiterate, these suck.
42-44: Flower Stand (Yew Lumber, Lauan Lumber)
– boring bridge synth, NPC them.
44-49: Horn Arrows (Arrowwood Lumber, Horn Arrowhead, Bird Fletching)
– Joy! Profit! AH them on a mule, enjoy em. You can always go back to these for easy profit when you need to. Find a bonecrafter like Ono to synth the arrowheads for you and your margin will be even bigger.
Take that guild test, and then prepare for massive hurt:
50-59
The death synth gap:
49-59: Scorpion Arrows (Arrowwood Lumber, Scorpion Arrowhead, Insect Fletching)
Yep. 10 levels. You can do other bridge synths, but they’re all losses. You get lots of .2 and .3 skillups from this early on along with the massive failure rate. Get Moghancement: Earth in your MH to reduce skillups by a lot (Fill your MH with yellow Jars). It will balance out, it will be profitable in the end. If there are a lot of people selling them in Sandy, people undercut by so much and it becomes a loss. Should be around 1.6k a stack to synth. When I did it, I got lucky and there was noone else selling em so I sold for 2.2k a stack. But now lots of people are doing them as of yesterday and I saw them selling for around 1.4k >< If that’s hte case, then try another town or Bazaar them. Also, friends and LS members use them for basically all jobs with ranged equip from lvls 40-60, so you can sell to them too for cost of ingredients.
59-60: Darksteel Bolts (Yew Lumber, Darksteel Bolt Head) — This is an expensive synth, but will profit/break even in the end. They quiver, and sell to RNG pretty fast if you can get some contacts.
For those of you who are leveling it as a sub, Congrats! Synth lower level lumber for easy profit since you can HQ1 and HQ2 it. Otherwise, look up recipes and find what can be profitable for you. Remember that HQ is best on Darksday and a Full/New Moon. You need to be 30-35 levels above a recipe’s cap to consistently HQ.
For those who want to continue, this is what I did:
60-62: Darksteel Bolts, as above.
From here onwards, it’s ALL losses.
62-65: Tarutaru Fishing Rods
– NPC them, there are losses which can vary. If you farm your own silk thread this might break even/profit to NPC.
Note: There are synths to repair fishing rods for the next 20 levels. However, you would have to be psycho to do this, since you need to get on the ferry, and break the rod, then repair it. you can get at most 3 breaks per ferry trip, and since skillups come so slowly, you’d be lucky to get .1 every hour. If you’re nuts and don’t want losses, then feel free to do this, but I think it’s a huge waste of time in the game. In these levels when yu’ll be lucky to get .2-.4 skillup per 2 stacks of ingredients, it’s important to wait for at least the right day to craft. You want to maximize skillups as much as possible since it’s such a gil-sink.
65-67: Demon Arrows
– Get a bonecrafter to synth the arrowheads. Expensive synth, if you get a bonecrafter it’ll be a tiny loss, if you don’t it’s around 2.3k loss per stack since last time I checked.
67-68 (and onwards to 72) 68-72: Tarutaru Folding Screen (3x Rattan Lumber, 3x Parchment)
– This is the lowest loss synth available. I’m doing it now, and I hate it. It requires a shitload of ingredients, and when you fail a synth you lose a lot of stuff. The Parchment is expensive and you don’t save anything between buying it from the AH/getting it crafted by a Leathercrafter. It sucks. I’ve stopped at 68.1 for now and am working on my Carpenter’s Apron before I ever go back to skilling up.
That’s basically it. Go for the GP items if you’re really dedicated, as they require a lot of time and money to acquire. I’m about 85,000 GP from my apron and I can’t wait.
I apologize for typos — too lazy to go back and spellcheck. Hope this helped
If others could post guides for their crafts to 60 that would be great.
Good luck!
